“Ever wonder,” I’d ask, if someone put a gun to my head and forced me to talk about particle physics, “why it’s so hard to lose weight?

“The problem, obviously, is Higgs boson!

“Suppose you’re about to eat some black raspberry chip frozen yogurt. Higgs boson explains why the yogurt has mass, why the chocolate chips have mass, and why—whether you eat a little or a lot—you’re going to have mass.

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“In other words, if you’re trying to shrink down to the size of a subatomic particle, Higgs boson says, forget it.”

Tip #1: Beware the curse of knowledge.

Tip #2: Black raspberry chip may or may not have the 61 particles in the Standard Model—who knows what’s really in it?—but it’s tasty.